On Rai5 protagonists of the museums of the future: the Madre in Naples and the Mart in Rovereto

Tonight a new episode of Art Night will air on Rai5 at 9:15 p.m.: this week we will talk about museums of the future. Two first-run documentaries about the Madre in Naples and the Mart in Rovereto, both custodians of contemporary art and food for thought on the role that cultural venues must play in the future. Two different places in the architecture of the buildings that house them, in the evolution of the collections, in the relationship with the territory. And at the same time united by the project of being a center of reference for Italian contemporary art.

The episode, introduced by Alessio Aversa and Alberto Garlandini, president of ICOM International Council of Museums, opens with the first-run documentary Madre by Luigi Pingitore, a No Spoon Film production in collaboration with Rai Cultura. In the historic heart of Naples, the three floors of the 19th-century Palazzo Donnaregina have housed the Madre Museum for 15 years: 7,200 square meters of exhibition space, with site-specific installations, works that make up the permanent collection and temporary installations.

Nothing is more difficult to tell than stillness. Buildings do not want to be told. And after all, nothing is more impenetrable than a work of art, especially if in its conceptual ambiguity it only challenges our gaze, our patience, our senses and our intellect. A place like Palazzo Donnaregina never allows itself to be told in full. There are no wide angles wide enough to embrace it as a whole, and there are no plan-sequences long enough to traverse it completely. Telling about the MADRE museum means telling about four intrinsically connected dimensions. The first concerns the museum as an architectural dimension, with its corridors, the panoramic terrace, the three floors connected by the staircase, the indoor and outdoor spaces. Then the museum as a container of artworks: the site-specific collections, the nonpermanent exhibitions, the installations. A third dimension concerns the people. Those who work in it, those who guide it, and those who visit it. And finally there is the urban context in which the Madre is inserted, since the museum straddles two very old and extremely popular neighborhoods, such as Forcella and the Sanità district. And it is precisely the contrast between the museum’s vocation for contemporaneity and the more conservative soul of the city around it that creates an evocative tapestry of color and sound that fully synthesizes Naples’ ability to live in perpetual balance between a very ancient past and the most advanced modernity.

Next, Art Night features the premiere documentary Life on Mart. Il paesaggio contemporaneo, by Katia Bernardi, an original EiE film production, made in collaboration with Rai Cultura and with the contribution of Trentino Film Commission. An alien spaceship landed exactly in the center of the Adige Valley, framed among the snowy peaks of Trentino. This is how the astonishing structure of Rovereto’s MART, a glass and steel dome conceived by international archistar Mario Botta and built on the same dimensions as that of Rome’s Pantheon, one of Italy’s first and most important contemporary art museums, presents itself to visitors.

Rovereto, which has always been a crossroads of encounters and trade with Mitteleuropa, owes its connection with art and the avant-garde movements of the 20th century to Fortunato Depero, an illustrious exponent of Italian Futurism who lived here for long years of his life, until the founding of the house-museum he himself conceived and today an integral part of the MART’s permanent collection. With unique and exclusive access to the museum’s collections, priceless archives, repositories and rooms closed to the public, the documentary will take viewers on a discovery of a place that represents an entirely new concept of an exhibition space. Because that spaceship landed in 2002 in the center of Rovereto today is a living part of the territory capable of dialoguing with the environment and society around it. A museum that is not just a spaceship then, but rather a contemporary landscape.

Art Night is a program by Silvia De Felice and by Massimo Favia and Marta Santella. Directed by Andrea Montemaggiori.

On Rai5 protagonists of the museums of the future: the Madre in Naples and the Mart in Rovereto

Warning: the translation into English of the original Italian article was created using automatic tools. We undertake to review all articles, but we do not guarantee the total absence of inaccuracies in the translation due to the program. You can find the original by clicking on the ITA button. If you find any mistake,please contact us.